I could not describe exactly what
happened next. A sharp bark later and what felt like hundreds of
rabid dark beasts seemed to violently climb the trees with mouth and
claw. Like a rolling wave, they pulled on each other, growling and
gurgling on foamy spit. Davite and I must have jumped from tree and
tree fueled by sweat and fear of the unnaturally quite rumbling behinds
us. Unlike every other kind of wolf I've ever heard of or seen, the damned
dogs did not bark. They only snarled and panted, pulling
themselves closer and faster than the death of light. A wall of
black pounding out of the ocean waves. A wall of primal evil.
For a while, there was nothing but
white in my mind. The dedication to running for my life was more
than the pain of the acid that must have been pumping through my
veins. In place of blood, there was only screams under my
skin. "RUN! RUN! RUN!"
The bane-weed never left it's sack.
There was no time.
It was the cold water of the Silver
River that shocked me to my senses. The chill snapped the noise out
of my mind in am icy sensation of weightlessness. I quickly
realized I must have jumped to the safety of the river, but had no
memory of doing so. When I surfaces, I turned to see my pursuers. A
blessing from all celestial beings granted that the wolves, piling up
at the edge of the river, could not stand to enter it, not even to
pursue one who had blasphemed their sacred site with his presence.
Davite was no where.
What followed was a strange and
unnerving game of Predator/Prey. I could not swim better than to
pull myself onto the opposite shore, but somehow the Dread wolves
also found themselves to the other side of the river, possibly
crossing the canopy above in a single-minded and hateful hunt.
Always, I kept to the shores, my supplies lost to the river bed
below. When the wolves grew too close, I jumped into the water and
tread toward the middle, until they backed off, unsure of how to
reach me.
Once or twice, the wolves would work
together, holding a long branch at both ends, one wolf to anchor on
shore and the other to try and reach me at the middle.
This never worked, because even when close, the beast could not do
more than claw me, unwilling to loose the branch.
The sun rose like the Goddess of the
East, forcing the angry wolves to shy away back into the thick and
demonic grove. I found myself at my limit of exhaustion and pain.
With nothing left inside me, I finally collapsed on the bridge to
Elexia and through fevered dreams, I barely felt the pull and care of
Chumkin and the farm girl who sold me the bane-weed. I slept for a
day and a night.
Still without energy, the next morning,
they found what had once been Davite dragged to the edge of the
woods. His fate the same as that bird sacrifice. A message from the
Dread Wolves.
Dread Wolves (Creature)
Fit: 0 Awr: 1 Crv: -1 Res: 1 Luk: 2
Dis: 4
Brawling(Proficient),
Investigate(Novice), Tactics(Proficient)
Claw(2 fatigue Damage), Bite(1 injury Damage)
No comments:
Post a Comment